by David Gilman
A hulking shadow whose eyes stared past his helmet’s nose guard broke the darkness of his beard with a snarl. ‘Am I always going to have to do this?’ Meulon said, heaving Blackstone up. ‘In Christ’s name, stay on your feet!’ And then he pressed on with the men who had protected the Englishman.
He had known the weariness of battle before. An exhaustion that could claim a man to the point where he could not raise another sword stroke, but this was different. It was a short, vicious fight and the killing was rapid. It was over in less than an hour. The surviving routiers threw down their weapons and were herded into the square, forced to kneel in the snow, their wounds splattering the whiteness. Some lay into the wet coldness and let their blood seep away until they died.
By daylight the snow had diminished to an occasional flurry. The captives were chained with the same shackles that had held Guinot and his men, who had been released from the pit. Charred timbers from the burnt houses smouldered and stank like the fur of a wet dog. There had been forty-three routiers left in the town. Blackstone’s men killed thirty-seven with a loss of four and that, he realized, was thanks to Meulon’s ability to think of how he might inflict the most casualties. Meulon, though, had begged forgiveness for his late entrance into the fight, explaining how the fleeing townspeople had impeded his attack and that he had not wished to cause them injury. In that moment Blackstone understood that Meulon stood before him as a subordinate. He clapped the apologetic captain on the shoulder.
‘It was a good plan, Meulon, and you came in time. That’s all that matters. And I swear I’ll do my best to stay on my feet next time.’
Meulon grinned sheepishly for having said what he had in the heat of the fight, but also knew that Blackstone had once again been generous in his praise.
Snow crunched beneath Blackstone’s boots as he walked along the bodies laid out in the square. Guinot and his fellow prisoners had been moved into a building where a fire was stoked and food prepared. They were weak, but Blackstone sent a rider to the monastery to bring Brother Simon and his medications. It did not take long for Blackstone and Meulon to scour through Saquet’s quarters. The house, which had once been well furnished, a symbol of the owner’s success in his trade, now looked more like a whorehouse. Wine and ale had been spilled, bits of scorched cloth showed where some linen had caught fire, and wall coverings and mattresses strewn around the rooms suggested that Saquet and his lieutenants had spread themselves throughout the house. The cellar doors were bolted but were soon broken open.
Meulon gaped at the amount of booty stored in the room.
‘He must have raided every monastery and nobleman for miles,’ he said, tipping open boxes of coin and gold plate.
‘Except that of Abbot Pierre,’ Blackstone answered.
It was not enormous wealth that lay before them, but it was a sobering sight and was more than enough to buy men and favour for months to come.
‘Bolt and seal the doors, Meulon, and then bar the entrance. I want this here when we return.’
A delegation of burghers stood waiting respectfully for an audience with the scar-faced soldier who was obviously in command and who now held their town. They had not been threatened by Blackstone’s men but encouraged to bring those who had run from the fighting back into the town. Of the six surviving mercenaries, Guinot and the leading townsmen identified four who had taken delight in torture.
Meulon was at Blackstone’s shoulder. ‘The gates are secure and I’ve men on the walls. What about the prisoners?’
‘Find a carpenter. Build a gallows,’ Blackstone said.
By the time Brother Simon arrived under escort, Blackstone had gone among Guinot’s men. He determined that three would soon die from their injuries, but the others would recover quickly enough with rest and food. Those who lay recovering from their imprisonment and brutal treatment mostly slept now that their ordeal had ended. He stopped at one, and then another, lifting the men’s hands and rubbing his thumb along their fingers, feeling that familiar ridge of callus. He didn’t recognize them but he could swear they were archers. One of the bearded soldiers had long hair that clung to his face like seaweed. He was barely conscious and the wounds from the whipping inflicted by the mercenaries festered. The man shivered, a sure sign that the wounds caused the fever. There was something about him, though, that Blackstone recognized – a strength in the man’s physique, that slab of corded muscle that lay across his shoulders. He pulled back the hair from his face. It was that of someone who, months before, had stood at his side, unyielding when the wolves of war tore them apart at Crécy.
Matthew Hampton was one of Warwick’s men who had served Sir Gilbert Killbere loyally as one of Elfred’s archers and was one of the more experienced men in Elfred’s command, a man who had offered advice to the young Blackstone. How had he ended up here?
‘Matthew?’ Blackstone said gently, wiping his face with a wrung-out cloth from a water bucket.
Guinot half raised himself. ‘You know him, Sir Thomas?’ he asked, having been told by Meulon the name of their saviour.
‘Matthew Hampton. I fought across Normandy with him.’
‘We had a dozen archers sent to us by King Edward. We were to hold towns in the south and by the time we got here we thought we’d beaten the French King all the way back to Paris, but we hadn’t reckoned on routiers. He and a couple of other archers are all that survived Saquet’s attack. Matthew’s a good man, and if he’s a friend of yours, then he’s a fortunate one.’
Blackstone beckoned Brother Simon and the younger monk who had travelled with him as his assistant. ‘All of these men need your skill, Brother. When you’ve tended to them here and given what aid you can I want them taken to your infirmary where you’ll care for them.’
He laid a hand on the semi-conscious man’s face. ‘Matthew, if you can hear me, it’s Thomas. Thomas Blackstone. You’re safe now.’
There was no recognition or word from the older man. Blackstone stepped away to allow the old monk to examine the archer. He needed to question Guinot and find out how the mercenary had breached the town’s defences held by the Anglo-Gascon soldiers.
It had been easy.
Guinot was on duty when one of the Englishmen in the mixed force called for Roger Waterman, the man-at-arms charged with holding the town with his fifty men. The new abbot of Chaulion monastery was at the gate with a gaggle of thirty villagers who had been attacked and whose homes had been destroyed by routiers. He begged shelter on their behalf. Waterman hesitated. Half his force was off duty and he didn’t trust this French monk, who perspired with desire at the sight of spring lamb on a spit. The abbot pleaded for a full half hour and it was only when a band of horsemen appeared on the road and began to ride towards the unarmed villagers that the commander of Chaulion ordered the gates opened to avert a massacre. The helpless peasants were no sooner inside the walls when they drew weapons and set about killing. They were mercenaries disguised in the clothes of those they had already slaughtered. The riders whose approach had triggered the act of mercy rode straight into the town. The terror lasted a full day and Waterman was cut down, his body dragged around the town. Guinot and his men barricaded themselves in a street but the force against them was too strong and one by one they fell. Some of the Gascons had their women in the town and they were dragged out and used to blackmail the survivors into surrender. Of the twenty-one men Guinot had gathered to resist Saquet’s raiders, only he and the men in the pit were still alive. The others had been taken out, one by one, then beaten and tortured to death in the main square.
Time was short. Saquet would return and Blackstone needed to be ready. Leaving only ten men under Meulon’s command to patrol the walls of Chaulion he prepared to take what was left of his force back to the monastery, taking Guinot and the ailing survivors with him.
‘Saquet will be gone three days, no more, and will then turn back,’ Meulon told him. ‘You’ve got a day left, maybe two at the most. You’ll need men at the crossroads. These tow
nsmen will hold the walls with anything they can pour down on them if he splits his force and attacks, which he won’t, because when he rides back and sees what you’ve done at the monastery he’ll need to kill you, all of us, if he’s to retake this place.’
Meulon pressed his argument. If Blackstone was to return to the monastery with so few men it would be a gamble, especially now that he held Chaulion: the risk was that it could be lost.
Blackstone realized it made sense, and had the guildsmen, who held council in the town, summoned before him. The grain and food stores were to be opened and the food distributed. Half of the coin and plate that had been looted by the routiers would be returned, the remainder was his men’s spoils for taking the town. A bargain was struck, rather than a threat being made. Were the townspeople prepared and able to protect their own walls over the coming hours until Blackstone could leave a garrison of men to hold the town permanently in his name and, by default, that of the English King? The councilmen, thankful to be rid of the mercenaries, and with no particular love for the high taxation that would be placed upon them by the French King if they fell back under his rule, readily agreed. The Anglo-Gascon force that had been in place before Saquet came had caused them no injury other than their demand to be fed and patis to be paid.
‘Are there weapons here?’ Blackstone asked.
‘They had a half-dozen barrels stored with swords and falchions, some spears as well,’ answered one of the men.
‘And archers’ bows,’ another added eagerly, ‘a dozen of them. They tried to draw them but couldn’t.’
Blackstone stepped to the man. ‘Are there shafts for the bows?’
‘Yes, lord,’ the man answered, ‘but only a handful, a dozen at most.’
If any of those exhausted archers could have a bow put in their hand and they found the strength to use them, then even those few arrows would give Blackstone a great advantage for his outnumbered men. ‘Fetch them. Keep the swords and spears for yourselves,’ he ordered. ‘What assurances do you give me that you can keep the gates closed and the walls manned?’
The men conferred worriedly, their shoulders hunched. There were outbursts of disagreement until one, who was not the eldest but a young merchant, settled their differences. It was agreed that they would give a child from each of their families to be taken by the Englishman and held to ransom. If it was to be a choice between Thomas Blackstone and Saquet, they would take the Englishman. All they begged of the vicious-looking knight was that he kill the mercenary, because if he did not their lives would be forfeit.
Instructions were given to lay the dead mercenaries in the cold gulley and cover what was left of them in the spring. Those townspeople who were killed were to be buried in their own graveyard, despite the hard ground. Blackstone had Meulon gather his men and the prisoners. Meulon, satisfied that his reasoning had prevailed, organized a wagon for the wounded. ‘Where are the hostages?’ he asked Blackstone as they prepared to leave.
‘We don’t need them,’ he answered. ‘They were prepared to give their children; that’s proof that they’ll do as they say.’
Meulon shook his head. ‘You trust too easily, Master Thomas.’
‘I trusted you with my life, Meulon. Was I wrong then?’
There was nothing more the seasoned fighter could say. The Englishman had an answer for everything. And the right one at that.
25
It was a wall to be proud of. It ran in true lines to the road, forming a low defensive curtain to the front of the monastery, fifty yards each side with a front wall, all in all a hundred and thirty yards already built, according to Blackstone’s experienced eye. It was not yet finished, but even if Saquet returned that day, Blackstone thought, the wall would be sufficient to form a strong defence and deny anyone ease of access over the crossroads. The men stopped working and cheered when they saw the survivors return from Chaulion, but their good humour settled when the monks unloaded the dead and took them into the monastery. These soldiers may have served different lords but they were in this place to fight together under one man, and each was dependent upon the other.
Gaillard recognized an old friend’s body being taken from the cart. ‘That’s Jacopo. Jesus, he was a stupid bastard. He’d trip over his own spear if you didn’t watch out for him. I’m not surprised he got himself killed,’ he said. Gaillard had served with the slain soldier since they were boys. ‘Did he fight well?’ he asked Blackstone.
‘He was at my side,’ said Blackstone. ‘We were outnumbered, but he stood his ground.’
‘There you are, then. I always told him to keep moving,’ Gaillard said and turned back to placing rocks into position on the unfinished section of the wall. Sentiment and prayer for the dead could wait until he was alone in his bunk and the night candle blown out.
The town’s carpenters hauled their timber from the carts and the six prisoners were shoved unceremoniously to the ground.
‘You four will hang for the torture you committed,’ Blackstone told the condemned men. ‘And you two, he pointed to the other prisoners, ‘will hang because I’ve no need for you or your kind.’
One of the men snarled like a dog on a chain. ‘Do it then, you scar-faced whoreson,’ raising his voice so all of Blackstone’s men could hear, ‘because when Saquet sees what you’ve done, he’ll gut you all, slow and even, a knife to your innards and your cocks sliced and stuffed down your throats. He’ll put you on a spit and make you eat each other. And then he’ll burn Chaulion to the ground. Do your worst. My body might swing in the wind like a tavern sign, but we sliced those feeble curs at Chaulion and took their women and we lived like men should live. Death is coming to every one of you. A bad death! Get on your knees and pray for your souls because—’
Meulon took a few strides and slit his throat. A final curse gurgled as blood spurted and splattered those chained to him as they attempted to pull away when his body kicked and spasmed.
‘He talked too much,’ he explained to a scowling Blackstone as he wiped his blade. ‘There are lads here who haven’t seen vicious fighting yet. Can’t have a turd like him putting thoughts in their head. They’ve not much room up there as it is.’ Meulon turned and ordered the men and monks who had stopped their labours, ‘Finish the work! Saquet is an evil bastard who slays women and children for his pleasure. You’ll be killing him and the scum with him when they get here. We’ve taken Chaulion and you’ve booty coming your way, thanks to Sir Thomas!’ Meulon raised a fist and the men cheered, though the monks looked more worried than ever. Throat-slitting was easy work for men like these.
Brother Simon tended the weakened men in his infirmary as Blackstone came to check on Guinot and the others. The men sat propped on straw mattresses as a couple of the monks went among them spooning the pottage’s liquid into them. ‘Will they be able to fight?’ asked Blackstone.
‘They have been starved, my son. And beaten. I have medicine in the broth. Give them time.’
Blackstone knew that even though a killer whose men outnumbered his own was soon to be on them, men could not be raised from their exhaustion because of it. ‘Tell me what you need and you shall have it,’ he said.
‘We have God’s blessing now that you have come,’ the old man answered simply.
Blackstone felt a heaviness building in him, something he had not experienced before. It was not fear, but it carried the same sense of trepidation that clenched his heart. And then he knew what it was. It was others’ expectations. ‘Brother Simon, I’m nobody’s saviour. Don’t have any thought that I am. I’m a soldier. I can be dead by this time tomorrow and then I’m only good for worm bait.’
The old monk looked at him a moment longer and then pointed a wavering finger at the silver effigy of Arianrhod. ‘I was a pagan once, my son, I prayed to all the Gods including our Lord. One of them must have heard me, though I’m unsure which one it was. I’ll find out soon enough, no doubt.’
‘I’m no pagan,’ Blackstone answered.
&nbs
p; ‘No matter. What’s important is who you believe it is that guides and protects you. Don’t be ashamed to go on your knees and beg for their help,’ he answered, and then went back to tending the sick.
Guinot swung his feet over the side of the cot, and tried to stand. ‘I’ve heard a scaffold being built before. You’re hanging them here, aren’t you? That’s a challenge to Saquet all right. He’s a reputation to uphold and stringing his men up at a crossroads is going to make him come after you personally, but before he does I want to see them choke,’ he said.
Blackstone eased him back onto the cot before his legs gave way. ‘You’ll see it. I give you my word. You and the others need to rest and let Brother Simon care for you. There comes a time when we have to surrender to those who can help us.’
Guinot nodded and eased back onto the mattress. ‘You think you can stop the routiers here? You and a handful of men straddling the crossroads? Sweet Mother of God, you were lucky at Chaulion. Those men you killed were just the scum that settles on top of a shit pit. Prepare yourself because when Saquet breaks down those doors every last man of us will be put to the sword. I heard what the old monk said. Listen to him – give the men Mass. Put God on their side.’
Blackstone wanted more than God on his side, he wished he had another fifty men. A hundred would be better. As he walked past the cots he saw that Matthew Hampton’s fever had broken. His eyes searched the torn face that gazed down at him. His breath rasped with effort through cracked lips. ‘Thomas?’
Blackstone nodded.
‘Look at you. We thought you dead. Bless you, boy. Where am I?’
‘The monastery.’
The archer nodded. ‘You got us out of Chaulion, then. We were dead men. They tricked us, Thomas, and killed us. Badly. My lads died badly.’
Blackstone rested a hand on Hampton’s and squeezed gently. ‘We’ll avenge them together. I’ve got your bow.’
‘No, they took it…’
‘I took it back. It’s yours. No one else carried a bow with such a dark band of wood that twists across the grain. I saw it right away.’ Blackstone brought the war bow up from where he had held it out of Hampton’s sight.
